Sony Reader Touch Edition

Until Amazon’s Kindle came along, Sony’s Reader range was the best ebook reader around.

The new Touch Edition is Sony’s response to that product, and it improves on its predecessor in a few ways. A clue to the most obvious is in the name – the reader has a touch-sensitive screen so you can control it by pawing at the screen. It comes with a stylus so you don’t have to worry about covering the screen in fingerprints.

You can flick the screen up or down to move between pages or use the keys at the bottom. There’s also a control for the magnification – the reader automatically reflows the text if you change its size.

The supplied Sony software can be used to pay for and download ebooks, and it will also convert PDF and other files to read on the device. In addition to reading text on screen, you can load audio files into the reader’s memory and listen to them – there are no speakers, though, so you’ll need to plug in some headphones. It can also be used for viewing pictures, and while the screen is black and white only, quality was surprisingly good.

As with all modern ebook readers, there is no backlight, which minimises eye-strain, but it does mean that as with a paper book you’ll need light to actually read anything.

The lack of a backlight is great for battery life, though – the reader only uses power when you’re playing audio, turning a page or choosing options, which means it’s ideal for long journeys.